


Soldier

by orphan_account



Series: Marvel Crossovers [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Add tags as I go, Constructive Criticism Welcome, Death, Eventual Marvel Crossover, Gen, IN SPACE!, Immortality, Marvel Universe, Outer Space, Work In Progress
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-25
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-01-31 17:12:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 15,676
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18595777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Kirra is your normal girl.  Except that she lives in space and is training to be part of the International Guard.  Oh, and she may or may not be part of some top-secret government experiment that isn't exactly happy with her right now.  So what better time than to go on a tour of the universe?ON HIATUS





	1. Unus

**Author's Note:**

> Alright, so this is something I'm working on for backstory on an eventual crossover later. Please be nice in your comments this is the first thing that I'm writing on this so I would like helpful comments. Also in my opinion the first 6 chapters are really boring but it will start to get exciting (hopefully) in the 7th chapter! Also my chapters are pretty short, sorry if you don't like short chapters. I'll be posting at least one chapter every week I already have some written and I'm just moving them over to here.

My name is Kirra Bladerunner and this is the story of how my life got flipped upside down and I discovered that not everything is as it seems.  But for now, that is far in the future. The year is 3487 and I’m a part of the American Quadrant in the Intergalactic Council. I was born on September 4th, 3471, of course, you would know that if you read my file.  Everyone is given a file that they keep with them for identification so that we can keep Rebels out. Who are the rebels you may be asking? Well, you’re just going to have to wait a bit. You hardly know me and everything I’m telling you now could be a lie.

My parents are Brittany and Leslie Bladerunner.  Brittany is a Leader of the American Quadrant while Leslie is a council member in the Council.  I have two older siblings but they already have jobs, not as important as what I am training to be, but needed to help the society run.  Most of the time they are off at work and I am stuck at home. Of course, it’s only for the summer and then I will be back at the Intergalactic Gaurd against Galaxy Wide Threats Preparatory School.  One day I’m going to be in the Intergalactic Gaurd probably at a high position too. My test scores were the highest in the entire schools. Of course, that led to many people not quite wanting to be with me but that’s a small price to pay for the success of the Council.

As of right now, I was compiling a report of any suspicious activity I had seen.  Because I was not yet old enough to have a job many people didn’t take me seriously and I was going to use that to my advantage.  Right now I was, in fact, writing about a woman I had seen using illegal technology.

 

**Report of Suspicious Activity in Sector 21 of the American Quadrant**

 

**The suspect is a middle-aged woman with greying brown hair, slightly overweight, and wearing nice clothing.  The operative saw the Suspect using illegal technology that had been banned by the Intergalactic Council. The operative is suggesting a search of the Suspects house Number 13 in Sector 21 of the American Quadrant.**

 

I looked at my report and added some more tweaks to it to make it more professional.  While they did look at all reports entered into the Sector database I found that they did things faster when it was well written.  As I was finishing writing it up the door beeped as someone came in. Judging by the weight of the footsteps I deduced that it was my mother, Brittany.  Brittany walked up to me and glanced at my report.

“Did you find another suspect?” she asked me as she read the report.  I nodded an affirmative.

“A woman who lives in Number 13 was using illegal technology that the Council banned.  I would be an irresponsible citizen and future Gaurd member if I didn’t report this to the authorities,” I explained to Brittany.  She read it one more time and then stepped back.

“You might want to get that entered in if you want Security to check it out,” she advised me.  I turned to the input screen and sent my report to Sector Security. The door opened again and my brother, Evan, entered.  I don’t trust him very much, I have been watching him hoping that I can get him reported but nothing has come up. One of these days I am going to catch him.  I ignored him as he tromped into the room I was in and instead opened up my lessons for today. While you don’t have to do the lessons I like to stay on top of them and that is one of the reasons why I am the best student.  I clicked open the lessons tab and my final lesson before school started again was about amputations.

I flipped open my virtual book about this and did a quick run over of the information.  I entered the information and sent it to the school database. Not being able to put off the inevitable I turned to face my brother.  I still have yet to figure out why he hates me so much, it might have to do with the reason that I’m going to be a part of the Guard while he is just a simple repairman.  I strolled into the dining area of our house and looked at the time. 10 more minutes until it is time for the last meal delivery of the day. That meant 10 minutes with Evan.

“So Kirra you reported another helpless person,” his voice cut through my thoughts.  I have yet to figure out why but he doesn’t always seem ready to report. Maybe that’s why he was rejected from the Gaurd.  I turned to Evan and shot him a glare.

“She was disobeying the law and it is my job as a responsible citizen to report her,” I answered him.

“How do you know she was disobeying the law, what if she had permission to...what was she even doing?” Evan said.  I knew that he was just asking these questions to get me angry, but despite that, I could still feel the irritation.

I rolled my eyes as I responded, “She was using illegal technology, and if she wasn’t disobeying the law than she will be fine.”  Evan thought over that. Finally, he was quiet. I turned back to check how much time before dinner. 3 minutes. I just had to keep myself from murdering him for 3 minutes.

“And if she’s not you’re just going to put a lady in prison?” he said after a couple of moments of blissful silence.  I felt my irritation grow so I started to find different objects I could kill him with.

Kitchen knives.  A couple stabs or slashes and he would be dead.

Food analyzer.  Heavy enough that a couple of hits to the head would kill him.  

I was broken out of my fantasizing when the door chimed.  That meant that food has arrived and I could finally leave Evan.  I walked to the door and brought the packages in sorting through it I grabbed my package and started for my room.

“What you’re not going to stay and eat as a family?” Evan said from behind me.

“Nope,” I said as I entered my room and shut the door.  I placed the food on my desk and opened the package. Inside where the food packages, I had a roast beef meal tonight.  I know what we aren’t supposed to have favorites but if I could have a favorite this would be it. By the time I finished eating my father and sister where home.  I walked into the kitchen to get rid of my food wastes when my sister walked up to me.

“Mom told me you had another report to give today?  Are you trying to beat the record for who can turn in the reports,” she joked with me.  I liked Briana much better than Evan, although we did get into fights every now and then.

“I wasn’t aware they kept track of how many reports a person entered,” I said with total innocence.  Of course, the Council had files on everyone and how many reports they both received and how many reports they gave.  Besides, I think that I have already reached around the same amount most people get in a year. Except for maybe the spies, they have to enter a report every single day.

“Kirra, of course, they have records of...Oh your joking with me.  You know you’re getting really good at that,” Briana said. As she was cleaning up her food wastes she said, “You know I think you might become a spy at the rate you're going now.  Two more years before you get assigned to a service.”

I nodded, I had two more years to show that I have what it takes to be a member of the Guard.  Of course, there are different factions within the Guard, but at the moment I am just going to see which faction I meet best in.  While I know that you aren’t supposed to assume what your job will be, I am the top in the entire school, I believe I have a very high chance of making it into the guard.

“Doesn’t your school start tomorrow?” Briana asked me right as Evan walked into the kitchen.

“Yeah,” I said as I studied my brother.  Judging by the smirk on his face he had something to say, probably something that’s going to annoy me.

“Ah, so the little brat is finally leaving,” Evan said, just as I predicted.  Although this didn’t bother me as much as he was hoping. I know that he is upset that I am already at a much higher level than him.  The only reason he was still a high-level home was because of our parents. Once he got married he would leave to a different Sector.  A lower Sector. Briana stared at Evan.

“Evan she’s your sister, you should be proud of her for going to that level of a school,” she said.  Evan just shrugged.

“I didn’t help her get there, so why should I give her encouragement.  Not everyone gets such an important job as a secretary of the Quadrant, or even a part of the Guard,” Evan said.  Ah, so I was right about why he was upset. Repair is an important job, but they aren’t as high level as members of the Quadrant or even the Council are.

Briana sighed, aggravated, “Evan, just because you didn’t get as high as a job as you wanted doesn’t mean that you have to be snarky to Kirra.  You’re older than her! You should be setting an example!” Briana said. I could sense that this was going to end in another fight. Something that I didn’t want to be a part of.  While I knew that I had superior facts and would clearly win in any verbal argument that I might have with my family I preferred not to get into unnecessary fights. I stood up quietly and made my way back to my room.

“Oh, are you running away?” Evan asked as he saw me leave.  That made me angry, I had no reason to run away from him and I would prove it.

“I just figured that you wouldn’t want to get beat by your little sister,” I said as pleasantly as I could muster.  

Evan glared at me.  “You wouldn’t beat me,” he said.  I just shrugged in response to that.

“Well my social standing is higher than you at the moment and I have Guard training.  So yes, I would beat you,” I said as I continued to my room. That seemed to have shut Evan up.  Behind me, I could here Briana start laughing, probably at the facial expression Evan was making as he processed my words.  I entered my room and looked around it. Everything was already packed for when I left the next day to the dorms. I layed on my bed as I thought about who would be in my classes.  

Soon my thoughts turned to what my future might be like.  Hopefully, I would be able to get into the Guard. But I might not.  If I wasn’t chosen into the Guard I didn’t know what I would do. I had no training in other aspects.  I could be banished from our society because I had nothing left to contribute. That thought frightened me.

I took a deep breath and resolutely stopped following those train of thoughts.  Nothing I could do would change what I would be once that decision was made. With that, I finally dropped off to sleep.

I blinked open my eyes to find a bright light shining down on me. was so bright that I could barely see anything around me.  I could feel restraints on my arms and legs and I seemed to be on a hard metal table. Cool air touched my back and I had the feeling of something _else_ being there.  Suddenly I felt a jolt of pain as something sharp dug into my back.  I bit back a scream but couldn’t manage to hold in the faint whimper.

A gloved hand suddenly touched my face. “Shh, it’s alright.  We’ll be done soon,” a female voice said somewhere above me. I wanted to ask what they where doing to me but I couldn’t form the words.

“We need to get this done, stop wasting time,” a harsh voice came from somewhere to my left.  The woman above me sighed.

“I know,” she said.  She leaned a bit closer to me so I could see her face.  It looked familiar. “Don’t worry, it will be over soon.”  

I felt something slice into my back and the warm trickle of blood as it found its way from my wound to the floor.  I wanted to move away from the pain and to my surprise, something shifted across the floor.

“Dangit, it’s moving again.  Someone put it under,” the harsh voice that said we needed to get this done said again.  I felt the sharp prick of a needle in my arm before blackness enveloped me again. As I fell away I felt the disturbing relation that I had moved something that shouldn’t have been there before.  And they were doing something to me.

 


	2. Duo

 

I woke up to the soft alarm of my clock.  I sat up in my bed and turned it off then went to go and get dressed sparing little thought to my disturbing dream that night.  Today was the day I left my home for my final section of schooling before I was assigned a job. I finished getting dressed into my school uniform, a tight-fitting black catsuit with the Council’s emblem on the left shoulder side.  I walked into the living room to grab my already packed bags and started for the door. I couldn’t waste any time on goodbye’s when nearly half of my family was already at work. If they wanted to say goodbye to me than they should have woken up.  Of course, I did have the letters that I would be sending home every night so it’s not like I was suddenly disappearing from their life.

I stepped out of my home and started walking towards the airlift.  I put the hover mode onto my bags so that I wouldn’t have to be dragging them behind me. Already I could see gardeners outside tending to the lawns in front of the houses.  I continued walking until I saw the sleek steel walls of the airlift.

I walked in the lift and was met by towering walls of steel reaching up around me.  The windows sparkled and let light in making the lift well lit. I sat down on a bench to wait for my ride.  I had only been in the lift a couple of times so I looked around dedicating every detail to memory. After that, I checked the time. Two more minutes and my lift would arrive.  A couple more people were coming into the station, either they were going to get on the same one as me or were coming for later lifts.

The lift came screeching into the station.  I had forgotten how loud they can be when they stop.  I knew that it was only lifts that were this loud. Starships where much quieter.  I felt a thrill as I remembered that we would be having a starship unit in school this year.  I stood and up and moved closer to it as I waited for the announcement that we were allowed to get on.

“Passengers for Air Lift 2A will be leaving in 5 minutes.  Please make your way to your lift,” came a smooth voice from the nearly hidden speakers in the roof.  I was already at the lift so I waited until the doors opened and entered.

The lift was a soft orange color inside.  This was just your average lift so there weren’t any of the fancier things in it.  All that was in the lift were seats and storage units above the seats. I had seen lifts that had complete rooms inside of them.  Honestly, I thought those where useless, as long as you were going where you needed to go you didn’t need frivolous extras.

I sat down at a seat by one of the windows and finally allowed myself time to ponder my strange dream.  From what I could remember it seemed as though I was restrained onto a table and someone was cutting into my back.  But for what reason? I know that some people receive implants but never into your  _ back _ .  And the woman who seemed to care about my feelings.  That was a strange thought. I know that my parents are concerned with my success but my actual feelings?  That was new.

I summoned my screen as other people started to board the lift.  I flicked on privacy measures so that no one would be able to read what I was writing unless they had clearance to.  I opened a new page and started to write.

 

**Dream Analysis**

 

**From what the operative could gather from it’s dream last night it was in some sort of lab being tested on.  It is unknown what was being tested however they're where incisions on its back. When the time arises the operative will check for scars on its back.  It has seen the face of one woman who was working on it. (See Fig. A)**

 

I quickly drew out a sketch of the woman from my dream and started to make it more detailed.  I’ve always enjoyed the simple act of drawing. I don’t get to do it much because I have a different schedule than someone training to be an artist.  Yet I do get to draw sometimes.

I was just finishing my drawing when a man sat down next to me.  He leaned over trying to look at my screen. From his annoyed scowl he wasn’t high enough to override my privacy measures.

“What are you doing, pretty girl?” he asked.  His voice was weasily and I hated how it grated against my ears.  I looked up from my drawing to study the man. He was slightly overweight and was wearing an ill-fitting suit.

I looked back to my drawing and answered, “Well, if I have it on privacy mode and you can’t see it than does it really matter what I am doing?”  My answer seemed to make him even more annoyed. He huffed and leaned back into his seat before turning his own screen on. It hovered in front of him and I watched as he turned on privacy and it went blank.

I finished my drawing and moved the file out of the way.  I glanced back at the man’s screen and wondered if I would be able to hack it.  If asked I could say I was practicing for school, it was, after all, a skill we needed.  I quickly dove into the programming of my own screen and moved towards the connections part of it.  This allowed me to see all compatible objects around me, and the man's was first on the list. I had to do a bit of maneuvering to get into his code but I finally made it.

It took a small amount of time to open what he was doing on his screen onto mine.  Strangely enough, he was playing a game. But not any game I’d ever seen. I made his screen smaller and put it into the corner of my screen and opened his past searches.  Still, nothing popped out that wasn’t ordinary. He seemed to just be your average citizen.

Just as I was about to give up I noticed something else come up onto his screen.  Curiously I enlarged it and studied what he was doing. It looked like he was sending a message, to….STAR?  What in the world was STAR? I read over his message but it didn’t really make any sense. He was saying that he thinks he might have found the project.  Whatever this project was.

He sent the message and then went back to his name.  I figured that nothing else would happen and started to search for what STAR was.  Frustratingly, I found nothing about it. Other than your average information about what star’s where made out of and how to collect energy and what not from them.  Halfway through the journey I closed my screen and stared out the window. I wasn’t going to find anything about this until I got higher clearance.

The ground whizzed by below me.  Green fields with sparkling rivers snaking through them.  I could just make out little farms speckled through the land.  In the distance was the sparkling city where I would be living in until my training was done.  I watched as we came closer to the city. The buildings come more in focus.

Soon we were landing in a grander version of the airlift back at my home.  As soon as we landed I stood up and waited for the man to leave. He took is time closing his screen and walking out of the lift.  It was annoying.

I stepped out of the lift and glanced around the station.  It had much more structural art then back home. I walked out of the station and was met by huge sparkling buildings towering above me.  Private hovercrafts whizzed by me. I stopped for a moment to appreciate the perfect sight synchronized movement.

I started walking deeper into the city.  My training would take place nearly directly in the middle.  I passed through the market. Traders yelling out prices, each one trying to get people to pay attention to them.  I ignored them and just kept moving through the crowd. I slipped through them like water. Very few people paid a second glance to me.  I couldn’t blame them. They were wearing rich clothes of government officials and other important people. I was wearing a simple black suit that faintly shimmered.  Not many people would notice me.

Soon I was out of the market and getting closer to the training grounds.  I could see the building rising out of the sea of sparkling glass and steel.  I kept on walking until I could see the large heavy doors that would lead me into the building.  I stepped into the doors and looked around the grand interior. There was a desk with a woman sitting there.  She was wearing a more updated version of my suit. Her blonde hair was in a tight ponytail. She looked up at me as I walked towards the desk.

“Name please,” she said looking back down at the screen she was working on.

“Kirra Bladerunner,” I answered.  The women moved some things around her screen before humming in approval.

“We have you registered for floor 50A, your room number is 13,” the woman said.  I nodded in response and moved towards the elevator. The doors opened for me and I clicked the button to bring me to floor 50.

I had no interruptions as I reached the floor.  I walked towards room 13 and stepped in. There was no one else here which meant that my roommates had not arrived yet.  I moved to one of the small rooms within this and set my stuff on the bed. It was smaller than my room at my house yet it had the same bare essentials.  A bed, a desk, a chair, and a bigger holoscreen on the wall. I quickly unpacked my things then moved back into the common room to wait for my roommates. I sat down on one of the chairs and opened my holoscreen.

I tapped my screen history and found the man’s screen again.  I clicked it open and while I could no longer see it real-time I still had the small amounts of information I was able to get during the lift here.

I started to do more in-depth searches of who he was contacting but as still coming up with nothing.  I was still searching when my two other roommates came into the room.

One girl was short and overweight with pale white skin.  She was wearing fine robes which meant that she was going to be a member of the Council.  Her grey hair was wound up in a complicated design and her brown eyes were nearly hidden by her chunky glasses.  I didn’t understand why she didn’t use the sleeker newer types but I didn’t ask.

The other girl as tall and finely built with faintly tanned skin.  She had startling blue eyes and her black hair was done in a simple ponytail.  She was wearing a suit like me but it wasn’t as high tech. I guessed she was either an engineer or a scientist.  For some reason the thought of scientists sent a shiver down my spine. I thought of my strange dream and the people who were with me.

“Oh we do have another roommate!” the tall girl exclaimed with excitement clapping her hands together.  The other girl rolled her eyes.

“Of course we have another roommate these are three-person rooms, Skye,” the girl said.  I stood up and closed my holoscreen.

“Hello, I’m Kirra,” I said to them.  Skye smiled and held out her hand for me to shake.  I shook it and dropped my hand back to my side.

The short girl pushed her glasses up her face, “I’m Ashlyn Weaver.”  I felt the itch to search her name through the database to find out what exactly she was training for.  Her robes showed that she would be a part of the council, but how high? I didn’t have to wait long before she added to her initial statement.  “I’m training to be a member of the council so that I can help approve laws,” Ashlyn said with a slight incline of her head.

Skye nudged Ashlyn, “Loosen up!  You’re not a member yet. I’m Skye by the way.”  I found myself liking Skye. I opened my mouth to ask what she was training to be when a woman from the desk’s voice came on.

“All trainees please report to sublevel 5 to receive your schedules,” she said.  I walked towards the door with a spring of excitement to my step. Finally, we were getting our schedules!  I hoped that I would get into the starship training class, yet I had the feeling that my chances where high.  Skye and Ashlyn were close behind me and jogged a bit to catch up as we walked out of the room.

“So Kirra, what are you training for?” Skye asked me as we made out way towards the elevators.

“Training to be a member of the Guard,” I said.  Ashlyn and Skye’s eyes widened. The Guard was one of the hardest training regiments this school had to offer.  Ashlyn quickly covered her surprise, I had the feeling she liked to be the highest ranking person in both the room and conversation.

“Doesn’t that mean that you have to sleep in mud or something?” Ashlyn said.  I shrugged.

“Depends on what assignment you’re given,” I answered.  As far as I knew sleeping in mud is not a requirement. Soon the elevator dinged and we stepped into sublevel 5.  There were signs that stood to guide the trainees to their different meetings places. I waved goodbye to Ashlyn and Skye and followed the signs to my meeting place. 


	3. Tribus

I stood waiting with other trainees in our designated area.  Our trainer hadn’t arrived yet which I found kind of strange.  It is strongly encouraged to be on time, especially for Guard members.  Soon a door slid open in front of us. A man with a sharply cut suit and salt and pepper hair stepped towards us.  He surveyed us with a searching gaze. I saw some people squirm under the intensity of his stare but I drew myself taller.  

“So, these are the recruits who have made it this far,” the man said.  His voice was a deep rumble and pleasant to listen too. Yet I could hear the notes of command.  I noticed some people mutter a ‘yes sir’ except I didn’t think he wanted an answer. True to my suspicions he shot glares to the few people who spoke.  “I am Colonel Jedrek and will be overseeing your training for the next two years,” he said.

“The next two years you will be living here will be full of training to make sure you are qualified to be in the Guard.  Should you prove yourself unworthy of this station then you will be expelled,” Colonel Jedrek said. I heard some exciting murmurs breaking out about how our training was going to be overseen by a colonel.  Colonel Jedrek cleared his throat and the few people talking fell silent.

“Your days will go as followed yet there will be surprise tests.  For the first part of your day, you will be in theory practice, and for the few of you that made it, advanced starship training.  After that, you will have time for lunch and then the rest of your day will be physical exercises,” he said. I thought that over, we would be indoors for half of the day and most likely outdoors for the rest.  Plus we would be having tests randomly which meant that we could be going outside of the city for days or weeks on end.

“The people who will be in the advanced starship training are Kirra Bladerunner, Jax Boman, Than Stardust, and Loralei Aturdokht,” Colonel Jedrek said.  I heard some sighs of disappointment around me from people who didn’t get in.

Colonel Jedrek scowled at the people who had started talking about how unfair it was they didn’t make it.  “Because some of you will be arriving later tonight, your training will begin tomorrow. Your exact schedules have been sent to your holoscreens and I expect you to be on time.”  After that he whipped around and strode towards the doors he entered by and disappeared. The moment he was out of view the group started talking.

I wanted to open my holoscreen right then and there to see my schedule but I didn’t want others to stare at me.  I still had my privacy mode on and there was no better way than to raise suspicions than to have privacy on when you’re checking your schedule.  I noticed some people had already opened theirs and were checking the schedules. I instead started walking towards the elevator to go back to my room.

I felt someone grab my arm and I nearly pulled out a knife and stabbed them before I remembered that it was not a threat.  “Hey girl, leaving so soon?” a skinny boy said. He was sickeningly pale and had watery blue eyes. I disliked him already.  His smile was crooked and his eyes held no warmth. I knew instinctively not to trust him.

I was about to tell him to leave me alone when a tall boy came jogging up to us.  He had feathery brown hair and tanned skin. His eyes were a sparkling brown and he had nicely defined muscles.  “Than! Leave her alone!” he called out.

Than scowled and let go of my arm.  “I was just making sure she wasn’t leaving without meeting some people first,” he whined.

The tanned boy rolled his eyes, “Yeah right, sorry about Than he doesn’t understand boundaries very well.  I’m Jax.” Jax held out his hand for me to shake. I shook it and pointedly ignored Than.

“Kirra,” I said.  Jax nodded and Than glared at me.

“I’ve heard of you, breaking all the records.  Don’t get me wrong it’s awesome and all but hey, leave some for the others to break,” Jax joked with me.  I liked Jax, he was funny but I could notice that he could go to serious in a second. I smiled at him.

“What and go easy on all of you?” I said.  Jax laughed.

“Well it can’t be too much to hope for,” he said.  Than shot one last glare at me before he tugged on Jax’s arm.  Jax shrugged him off, “Than if you want to go you don’t need me to supervise.”  Than turned around on his heel and stalked away back to the other people in the group.

I sighed, “Well I need to unpack some things still.  I doubt we’re going to have time tomorrow.” Jax nodded in agreement.

“Yeah I need to do the same, what building are you staying in?” he asked me.  We started walking towards the three elevators. There were three different buildings all of them connected in the sublevels.

“Building A,” I answered him.  I felt myself hoping that he would also be staying in Building A so that we could talk for a little longer.  I felt the urge to ask him about STAR but I had the feeling that we weren’t supposed to know about that.

Jax smiled ruefully, “Darn, I got Building B.  See you tomorrow?” I nodded and stepped into the elevator that leads to Building A.  I waved goodbye to him and pressed button 50 to lead me to my floor. The ride up was as smooth as I remembered I could barely sense movement as I shot up to floor 50.

The elevator reached my floor and I walked towards my room.  I wanted to see what my schedule was. As I neared my room I could hear people talking.  I slowed and strained to hear what they were saying. The voices where coming from the administrator's office on my floor.

“How long did you say it would take for it to manifest again?” one voice said.  I decided to name this person Person 1.

“It should manifest this year, although I can’t give you the exact date without testing,” a female voice said.  It was familiar sounding kind of like the voice from my dream. Except it was older and more frail sounding. I named her Person 2.

“Would a blood sample work fine for that?” Person 1 asked shifting some papers around.

“Yeah, it just needs to be as recent as possible,” Person 2 said.  I could hear the soft squeak of leather and I guessed that someone had moved in their chair.

“Alright I will be able to pull that off,” Person 1 said.  I heard scraping and guessed that he had stood up.

“I’ll get back to you as soon as I’m able to find out when it will manifest,” Person 2 said also standing up.  I had the feeling that they would be leaving soon so I sped back up to a normal walking pace and had almost reached my door when the door opened.  I glanced over to see what they looked like when I reached to open my door. Surprise nearly made me freeze. It was the person from my dream, the only differences wear that her hair was more grey and she had more wrinkles on her face.  I took a deep breath and entered my room. Once the door was closed I sunk down onto one of my chairs.

If she was here that meant that my dream might not be as make-believe as I thought.  What if there was something different with me? Why did she need blood samples and what was going to manifest?  I had the sinking feeling they were talking about me.

I don’t know how long I sat there but by the time I began to start sitting up and getting along with my life, it was already dark outside.  I wondered why Ashlyn and Skye weren’t back yet, but then I figured they must be still going through their first day and learning where everything is.  I was sitting at the table and eating my dinner when they finally walked in.

Skye immediately walked up to me but Ashlyn took her time.  “Kirra! We were looking for you after our trainers stopped talking but we couldn’t find you!” she exclaimed.  I set down my fork and stared at her.

“Well, where did you even look?” I asked her.  They hadn’t known me long enough to compile a list of reasonable places that I would be.

“First we checked everywhere we were allowed in sublevel 5 and then we moved to common areas and then I got distracted because they have such a huge library!  Image all of the information that you could find if you had time to read all of that!” Skye said starting to get in-depth on the greatness of the library here. I had the feeling that she could go on and on about this if she wasn’t interrupted.  I was about to ask her another question when Ashlyn nudged her arm.

“Skye, I think she gets it,” Ashlyn said.  She moved towards the kitchen and got her own dinner ready than plopped down on the chair next to me.  Skye sat down after having fallen silent for a second.

“After the library, we came up here and there you where,” Skye finished.  I nodded, so they had checked in reasonable places for me to be. I wondered why it took them so long and if they had also heard a conversation similar to the one I overheard on my way here.  

Skye got up to grab her food and sat back down right as we all received a notification from our holoscreens.  I opened it and noticed two new messages. One of them was my schedule for training and the other was an announcement from the administrators.  I clicked it open and read over it. It talked about the need to keep databases updated and make sure all of the students here were healthy. In other words, all students would be having their blood taken.  I knew that this wasn’t about safety or updating databases, it was to find how  _ it  _ was manifesting and when it would come.

“We have to give our  _ blood _ !” Ashlyn exclaimed with disgust.  I knew that she had to have her blood taken before but apparently she didn’t like that.

Skye set down her fork, “Yeah, for updating the databases and making sure everyone here is healthy.  Although I’ve heard it’s for a different reason.” I felt fear dragging its icy claws down my back.

“What other reason?” I asked covering my fear with interest.  Ashlyn leaned forward her food forgotten. Skye looked excited to be the center of attention.

“Rumors are that there is a secret government project that’s escaped and they’re trying to find it,” Skye said.  My thoughts drifted to my dream again. Could it be that I was that government project? But I hadn’t escaped anything, why would they be looking for me.  I thought again of the conversation I overheard. That woman was waiting for something to manifest, whatever it was I had a sinking feeling that I would be finding out soon.

Ashlyn snorted, “A secret government project?  Where did you even  _ hear  _ that Skye.”  I felt a flicker of relief that not everyone was believing this.  Skye smiled at Ashlyn.

“Simple, I hacked into it,” she said.  I froze and stared at her. She hacked into the government and wasn’t caught?  I felt the need to report her but I desperately wanted to know what she had found.  Ashlyn seemed to be having the same thoughts. She was staring at Skye in amazement.

“What did you find?” I asked her abandoning my food.

“I found several reports about a new project about something that could be used to stop rebels with more efficiency than normal troops.  The last thing I could find was when they put it off to the side for a bit,” Skye explained. While that information was helpful it gave me nothing about what the conversation was about.  I shivered slightly and then turned my attention back to my food. I was going to need it for tomorrow.

Ashlyn and Skye continued talking about how she hacked into the government and what this project was.  I ignored them and cleaned up my food then headed for my room. I nearly made it without being noticed when Ashlyn spoke up.

“Kirra why are you going to bed so soon?” she asked me.  I turned back to them and smiled.

“I have a tough schedule for tomorrow and want to be as well rested as I can,” I said.  Skye nodded along with Ashlyn. They went back to their conversation coming up with even more crazy ideas.  I slipped into my room and locked the door. I sunk down onto my bed and stared at the wall.

With dull eyes, I flipped open my holoscreen again.  This time to check my schedule for tomorrow. For the first week, it looked like we would be covering physical injuries, then she and the other people would go to their starship class, there was a brief period for lunch, and then they were doing drills.  The only days we had free time where the last day of the week. I started to plan what I wanted to do in my free time. For sure I wanted to figure out what exactly this government project is, and seeing the city would be nice. Maybe I could get Skye alone and we could talk about that.  I had the feeling she knew more than she was letting on.

I got into my bed and turned the lights off.  The only light in my room was coming from my dimmed window.  I stared at the pulsing lights as a fell asleep.


	4. Quattuor

I woke up to a soft alarm ringing through my room.  Luckily I had no dreams so I didn’t have to have the stress of wondering what they meant throughout the day.  I rolled out of bed and quickly got dressed. After cleaning myself up a bit I walked out into my common room to get breakfast before heading towards my training room.

Skye was sitting at the table scrolling through the holonet as she ate a chocolate covered croissant.  So that’s what breakfast is today. I grabbed my own croissant and sat next to Skye peering over to see what she was looking at.  Skye was scrolling through different reports that I guessed she had taken when she hacked into the government server.

“What are you looking at?” I asked glad that I could be alone with her.  Ashlyn wasn’t up yet and I guessed she was allowed to sleep in as much as she wanted due to her training basically being nothing but how to act in parties and what not.

“Trying to see if I can find any more information regarding why they need the databases updated now.  It would make sense when we graduate but there is no legitimate reason to update it now,” Skye answered still scanning through the files.

I took a bite of my croissant, “Found anything interesting?”  Skye shook her head and finished her croissant her eyes never leaving the screen.

“There’s a surprising lack of information here.  I’m guessing most of it is still hard copies and they haven’t found the time to enter it into the database,” Skye said.  She closed her holoscreen and sighed. “Or it’s too sensitive of a matter to keep in their general database.”

I finished my croissant and thought about this.  Information that only had small hints and tidbits in the database?  They must not want potential hackers to know about this. Whatever this was.  “Well, I need to get to training, see you at lunch,” I said.

Sky nodded, “See you.”  I stood up and put my plate in the washer then walked out the door towards the elevator.  I needed to get to Building C which meant I had to go down to the lobby. I stepped into the elevator and found no one else with me.  It wasn’t that strange, only Guard trainees would be going to classes this early in the morning. The sun hadn’t completely risen over the city and I could see the glowing lights whizzing past me from the elevator window.

I reached the lobby and barely wasted any time before getting into the elevator that would bring me up to level 96C.  Again no one joined me in my ascent to the floor. As I reached it I thought over what would happen when they took everyone’s blood.  I wondered if they would be able to find what they would be looking for. I hoped they would but at the same time, I found myself fearing the results of whatever tests they would be running.

As I stepped into the room I noticed that I must have gotten ready much faster than the other recruits.  The only other people in the room were Than, Jax, and another boy I didn’t recognize. I walked over to them lacking anything better to do.

“Hey Jax, Than,” I said in a way of greeting.  Than glared at me and then looked around the room.

“Ancel let’s go talk somewhere else,” he said in his slimy voice.  Jax wacked Than and the guy I assumed to be Ancel just stared at him.

“I think I would like to meet her,” Ancel said turning to look at me.  Jax whispered quietly to Than about how that was rude and that I was going to be training next to him and he should treat me with respect.  “Hi, I’m Ancel,” Ancel said.

“I’m Kirra,” I said.  Jax had finished whispering to Than and turned over to look at me also.

“Hey Kirra, finally finished unpacking?” Jax said with a smile on his face.  I smiled back at him.

“Yes, I  _ finally _ finished.  Although I am thinking of going to the market to get some decorations for my room,” I said.   Jax laughed and after a moment of hesitation, Ancel joined too. Than scowled and walked away from us.  I didn’t know the reason he disliked me so much but I knew that he did. I was hoping to figure it out except I couldn’t think of anything I did to make him upset.

Other students started trickling in and more conversation grew.  I checked the time and found out that we had 6 more minutes before Colonel Jedrek would show up for our lesson today.  True to the time 6 minutes later Colonel Jedrek walked in followed by the woman from my dream and the office.

“Line up,” Jedrek barked at us.  I moved into position as the others got into a line in front of him.  I stared at the wall in front of me as I waited to see what he wanted us to do.  “As you should have read you will need to have your blood taken today. Because we will be having a brief unit on first aid I figured that we will be doing it today and you will have to bandage it yourself.  Not that it will be hard,” he told us.

The woman stepped forward as Colonel Jedrek stopped speaking. “My name is Izel.  I will be taking your blood samples today,” she said. “I will be starting at this side of the line and working my way down.”  She was staring at my side of the line. I held back a tremor of fear and watched as she started to take blood from my fellow students.

When she reached me nothing out of the ordinary happened, she inserted the needle, took some blood, then moved on to the next person.  I bandaged my arm although I didn’t really need it. I watched as she finished gathering the samples and left the room. As soon Izel left Colonel Jedrek moved in front of us again.

“Now I know you have all learned about first aid so this is mostly just going to be a review,” he said and then dove into the different aspects of what we needed to know.  Every now and then we would practice what we learned on holograms but it was mostly a lot of listening to the what Jedrek said. Soon a soft bell chimed through the building showing that it was time for lunch.  Colonel Jedrek stared up at the ceiling with a faint scowl on his face. “After lunch is done I want you to come up to the top floor,” he said before leaving.

I stood up from where I was sitting on the door and headed towards the elevator.  Everyone else followed my lead. When I was in I clicked the buttons to take me to the cafeteria.  As soon as I reached it I walked outside the elevator and searched for Skye. I found her in the corner of the room on her holoscreen.

I sat down next to Skye and pressed a button to order my food.  Skye looked over at me from her holoscreen. “Guess what,” she said.

I shrugged, “Something exciting happened?”  Skye nodded her head and then shifted her screen to show me what looked like different test results.

“Miss Izel is letting me do the testing for the blood samples,” Skye said excitedly gesturing to different parts of the screen.  She started explaining what everything meant and how lucky she was to be chosen for this. I realized that this meant she would have access to the tests.  That meant all of them and maybe it could help me find what the reason was for this random blood testing.

“Have you found anything interesting yet?” I asked her.  Skye shook her head.

“I’ve only done three tests, I’m working on the fourth but I haven’t gotten any results yet,” Skye answered.  I thought this over, the tests were set for different times of the day mine was the first. That meant that she was working on my group.  I wondered what the results would be for test four, I was the fourth person in line so it was safe to assume that my test was number four.

“When do you think you’ll be done with the tests?” I asked her.  I started eating my food knowing that I would be doing physical training after lunch.

“I’ll probably be done with at least eight by the end of today,” Skye answered.  She tapped out more commands onto her holoscreen as she finished eating. I watched her for a bit before I got a notification from my holoscreen.  I opened it to find a new message from an unknown sender.

**Unknown Sender:** Hey Kirra, finally found your holoscreen address.  Are you excited for physical training?

I smiled as I realized it was sent from Jax.  I set down my fork and started to type out my own reply.

As excited as you can be to get sore muscles. **:Me**

Syke leaned over my shoulder and quickly read what I had written.  I looked over at her plate to find that she had finished her food.

“Who are you talking to Kirra?” she asked me.

“A friend from training, we’re both in the advanced starships class,” I answered.  Skye grinned and she had a strange twinkle in her eye.

“Do you like him?” she asked me.

I stared at her, “I mean, he’s in my class, should I not like him?”  I had the feeling she was going to start asking me more questions about him.

“Is he hot?  What’s his favorite food?” Skye asked me.   I shoved Skye lightly.

“Why are you so interested in him?  He’s in my class,” I said. Skye laughed and shoved me back.

“You like him,” she told me in a sing-songy voice.  I laughed with her. “Are you inviting him to go anywhere, like maybe this Saturday?” Skye asked me.

“I mean if he’s up for it I’m thinking of inviting him to go with me to the market,” I said.  I looked at my holoscreen and noticed that Jax was typing. I should probably get him into my database but I could do that later.

**Unknown Sender:** I was thinking, would you like to hang out on break day?

Skye read that and positively squealed with excitement.  “Oh my gosh say yes Kirra! Say yes!” She started nudging me and gesturing to my holoscreen.

“I’m going Skye, calm down!” I said as I started to type my response.

Sure I would love to hang out on break day. **:Me**

I looked at my clock and noticed that lunch was almost over.  I quickly ate the rest of my food as Skye stared at my screen waiting for Jax to answer.  I just finished eating as the bell chimed signaling it was time for us to go to our next classes.

“I’ll tell you if he says anything else after classes are over, Skye!” I called after her as I started walking back towards the elevators.  Skye threw me a thumbs up and then hurried away. I turned and came face to face with Jax.

“So, excited for break day?” he asked me a little nervously.  I smiled at him.

“Well, who wouldn’t be?” I said back to him.  He smiled at me a little gratefully.

“What are you thinking about doing?  I mean I know we are planning on hanging out but anywhere you want to go in particular?  I haven’t really seen the city so I don’t know any cool places to go,” Jax started telling me.

“I was thinking we could go see the market.  I saw it on the way here and thought it would be cool to see all of the different things on sale,” I told him.  Jax nodded in agreement. We stepped into the elevator and stood there in silence as we moved towards the roof. Jax looked around the elevator and found us alone.

“What do you think the reason for them taking our blood really is?” Jax said in a hushed voice as though he were afraid of someone overhearing us.

“I haven’t told anyone yet but I heard Izel and one of the administrators talking about this earlier.  They are looking for,” my voice cut off. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to share that part of the story. Jax seemed to understand what I was implying.  He opened his holoscreen and looked at me uncertainly before showing me what it was. It was more of the government things that Skye was looking at.

“Me and Skye, your roommate, we found somethings that we need to talk about on break day,” Jax said a little sadly.  I nodded knowing that something was happening and we needed to find out what it was.

“So we’re all going to meet up at break day to find out what we can from this?” I said.  Jax nodded in agreement then closed his holoscreen.

“Ask Skye later to help you get onto a server that isn’t tracked by the government so that you can start better researching this,’ Jax said.  He was about to say more but we had reached the roof. Stepping outside I saw the training grounds. It was a huge field on the top of the building of every type of environment we could face.  Colonel Jedrek was already there and waiting for us. Jax and I quickly jogged over to the group and waited for our training to begin.

We worked on drills for the rest of the day.  First, we would do runs through all of the different environments.  Then, we did climbing exercises, then swimming exercises and so forth until we were all shaking and barely standing up.  I dragged myself back to my room and flopped onto the couch as I waited for Skye to get back.


	5. Quinque

 

I woke up to someone shaking me.  I opened my eyes to find Skye looking down at me.  “Wow, they must have really worked you hard, dinner’s here.”

I sat up and looked around our room.  “Where’s Ashlyn?” I asked.

“Not here yet, she has some late night dinner party,” Skye answered walking over to the table.  “Did you talk with Jax?” she asked me. I nodded and walked over to the table. “What did he tell you?” Skye asked.

“Plans for Break Day.  We’re wondering if you want to come with us so that we could talk about things,” I told her.  Skye nodded and got out her food and mine then sat at the table.

“I finished the tests today, do you want to see the results,” Skye told me as she started to eat her food.  I wondered if she had found anything different about mine. “I was also wondering if I could show you something on your holoscreen,” Skye asked me.

“Please do,” I told her as I started to eat my food.  I opened my holoscreen and moved it so that Skye could type on it for a bit.  Skye started typing and clicking open different things as she got me onto a secure base.  She passed it back to me and I glanced up to see a simple base. I looked at Skye and asked, “This is it”

Skye nodded, “I already have Jax and me on it.”  I opened the chatting part of the base and noticed that Fire_Boy12 was active.  I looked over to see my username and read it.

“The_Soldier really?” I said.  Skye blushed.

“Well I wasn’t really thinking, and I mean, I’m Smart_Potatoes10,” Skye said.  I shook my head and started typing.

Hey Fire_Boy12, Smart_Potatoes10 helped me get on. **:The_Soldier**

Skye looked onto my screen then seemed to realize that she could get on too.  She opened her holoscreen and got onto the base.

**Smart_Potatoes10:** You darn right I did.

**Fire_Boy12:** That’s nice.  Love how humble you are Smart_Potatoes10.

I laughed as I read what Jax had written.  Skye flipped her hair. “Well I did help you, how in the world am I supposed to be humble when I’m stating a fact?” she said.

“Well I mean maybe you don’t point it out that you helped me,” I told her.  Skye snorted then typed out a response to Jax.

**Smart_Potatoes10:** Well I did help her so sorry if that isn’t humble enough for you.

I laughed at what Skye had written.  “Skye I think you made it worse!” I gasped out.  Skye looked at me with a smug expression.

“Well if he can’t deal with that then it’s clearly his problem,” Skye said.  I slowly stopped laughing but avoided looking at Skye before I could start laughing again.  Jax was writing something.

**Fire_Boy12:** Well that’s real humble.  But we do need to talk about the test results.  Smart_Potatoes10 can you share them with us?

Skye made face and started typing out more commands onto her holoscreen.  “Those tests better be important because they were as boring as anything,” Skye said as she clicked the send button.  Soon enough I got a notification that Smart_Potatoes10 had shared files with me. I opened the files and looked at all of the different results.

Alright, what are we looking for?  **:The_Soldier**

**Smart_Potatoes10:** Anything that doesn’t look like it belongs.  Fire_Boy12 told me that you overheard a conversation about this, could you tell us The_Soldier?

I frowned as I read what had been written and thought about the conversation from before this all started.  I was starting to think that maybe it would have been nicer if I didn’t overhear any of this so that I wouldn’t have to deal with things like wondering why there was a test and participating in illegal actions like creating a new base that the government couldn’t access.  I started typing out the conversation I had heard and then sent it. Beside me, Skye frowned as she read it over.

**Fire_Boy12:** Well that was a lot more information than I was looking for.  Any idea what test result this could relate to?

**Smart_Potatoes10:** Yeah I found the test result that related to that.  Except, The_Soldier, it’s your test.

I read that over again.  I had been expecting it but now it was official.  They were looking for my blood the only question was why.  Skye looked at me with worry. “Are you okay Kirra? We can talk about this another time if you want,” she said.

I shook my head, “I need to know why they needed my blood.  What is going to,” I cut off my sentence but we both know how it ended.  I shook myself to get back on track, “Well, let’s take a look at that test shall we?”

Skye seemed to understand what I was saying and opened my test and then opened another test next to it.  I could already see differences between the two results. “As I’m sure you see already, your blood is different.  I compared it to the average blood of the entire tests except yours has unknown components and is missing other things that are in other peoples blood,” Skye started talking.  I moved around the tests so that I could look closer at the differences between them.

I enlarged both of our screens so that we could see them better.  Jax was typing once again.

**Fire_Boy12:** Can you put me onto a video call so that I can talk easier I can’t exactly see what you are pointing to.

I put Jax onto video chat and his face popped up on my screen.  I flipped it over so that he could see what me and Skye were working on.  “Well that is...different,” Jax said as he looked over the tests. Skye nodded and started talking again.

“The people said that something would be manifesting, we just need to figure out what that is,” Skye said as she opened more files spreading them out to float in the air.  “I’ve been searching through the general database and the government database and the only matches I’ve found have to do with a discontinued experiment that they were working on,” Skye said.

I looked at the files she was pulling up and read over them, many of them were talking about other tests or things that must have been hard copies.  The most information on one was that the subject was reacting well to tests with zero gravity and little to no oxygen levels. I wondered what that meant, did they just stick whatever they were testing into a room with zero gravity and no oxygen to find out how it would react?  Jax seemed to have been reading the same thing.

“Little to no oxygen?  How did the subject even survive that,” he remarked.  I agreed with him, all life forms that have been classified have needed oxygen, some less than others but all of them needed oxygen.  If there was a creature that could survive with no oxygen than they wouldn’t have to bring oxygen tanks with them when they went to space.

I looked over to see how Skye was doing as she flipped through files and frowned at my tests.  “How are you doing over there, Skye?” I asked her.

“Almost, I think I might be coming across something but I’m not quite sure,” Skye said.  I walked over and glanced at the files she was looking at. I moved the screen with Jax on it over to us so that he could also see what we were looking at.  Jax quickly read over it and then started clicking at things on his side.

“I think I might have found something, I’ll send it to you,” Jax said.  Soon I received a notification.

**Fire_Boy12:** <file> Got it for you guys.

I opened the file and looked at it.  It was all coded but it surprisingly had a couple of different pictures on it.  Jax looked back at us through the screen and started talking again.

“So I found this and the pictures kind of helped except I haven’t been able to decode it and I was hoping that maybe one of you guys would be able to,” he said.  Skye looked over at the file and frowned.

“I can recognize a couple of different codes but it looks like someone used a different code for each word.  There’s at least 5 and I can only recognize two,” she said. I looked at the file and couldn’t make sense of it either.

“Maybe if we look at the photos we might have a better idea of learning what this is about,” I said as I started to enlarge the photos.  Most of the photos were really blurry and I could barely make anything out. The only photos that weren’t blurry where just snapshots of a room and one a silhouette of something.  I tried to clarify the pictures except it seemed that they were as clear as they were going to get. I turned my attention to the pictures of the rooms.

One room was completely bare except for a couple heavy looking chains that extended from the floor, the walls, and the ceiling.  The other room had a metal operating table in the middle. The table had restraints on it and the top part of it had a rectangular hole in it.  Heavy lights hung directly above the table. I frowned out that picture. It looked like the room from my dream. We all sat there in silence as we attempted to decode the file.  After about an hour, Ashlyn still hadn’t come back yet, I heard people talking outside our room. It sounded like Izel and the administrator. Not wanting to risk being overheard by them I typed out a message to Skye and Jax.

Izel and the Administrator are back, maybe we can find out what they are talking about. **:The_Soldier**

I watched as Skye got the notification and started writing out a response.  I looked onto the video chat with Jax and he seemed to be typing also.

**Fire_Boy12:** Anyway we can listen in on their conversation?

Skye frowned after reading what Jax said and deleted her message to start writing out a new one.  I walked over to the door to see where they were. Listening I heard the administrator’s door open and shut.  They were in the office.

**Smart_Potatoes10:** If we find out what room they’re in I can hack into security feeds.

Noticing my chance I typed out the information I was able to gather from listening to the doors.

They’re in the administrator’s office.  I heard the door open and close. **:The_Soldier**

I saw Skye smile at my message and started to type in commands on to her holoscreen.  After a bit, the security feeds, complete with sound, hovered before us.

The administrator was a stubby man with balding hair.  He was sitting in an extravagant chair behind a deep mahogany desk.  Izel was standing in front of the desk and seemed to be waiting for him to say something.

“So you have finished the tests,” the administrator said.  His voice was kind of staticky but clear. Izel nodded and opened her holoscreen.

“From the tests that we have run it should manifest by Saturday,” Izel said.  The administrator smiled at that.

“Soon we will have our own force to go against those nasty rebels,” he said.  “Will it start manifesting at break day or will it just be finished manifesting by then?”

“It will start manifesting tomorrow morning, you might want to take it out of the classes it is currently enrolled in so that no one will find out anything about what it truly is,” Izel said.  The administrator nodded as he took out his holoscreen and started writing out a note. He finished and sent it and then closed the screen.

“There, she’ll be out of classes starting tomorrow morning, except I won’t be able to do much about its roommates, one of them I can move but the other one you’re just going to have to keep busy so that it isn’t found out,” he said.  Skye looked over at me and started typing something. I didn’t know why we weren’t able to talk right now but it just seemed like it wasn’t right to intrude on the silence in our room. I watched as Izel stood up and thanked the administrator and then left the room.

**Smart_Potatoes10:** So, that happened.  What now?


	6. Sex

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> BEFORE YOU FREAK OUT OVER THE CHAPTER TITLE IT IS JUST THE NUMBER SIX IN LATIN IF YOU DON'T BELIEVE ME PUT IT IN TRANSLATE (because that's what I've been using)!!!!

After a bit longer of talking about what we were going to be doing about this new information we decided that they're was nothing we could really do about this so we all went to bed.  I layed there in the dark wondering what in the world was going to happen to me tomorrow. I wondered slightly about why they weren’t giving any pronouns but I soon fell asleep.

I woke up groggy from having stayed up late the night before researching with Skye and Jax.   I rolled out of my bed and strolled towards the common room. I figured that Ashlyn might have come back to the room sometime last night, but when I walked in I didn’t see any sign of her having come back.  Skye was sitting at the table eating and flipping through different pages on her holoscreen. I noticed that I had a couple new notifications but decided that I would be looking at them later.

“Morning Skye, where’s Ashlyn?” I asked her as I got my breakfast and sat down next to her.

“I don’t know, she didn’t come back last night.  She might have been assigned to a different room,” Skye answered.  I glanced over her shoulder and noted that she was looking through more government files about whatever mystery was going on right now.  I nodded and then opened my holoscreen to read what new notifications I got.

One of them was from my sister asking how I was doing, I would answer that later, and the other was a message from the school board saying that I was having a free week and that I wasn’t expected to go to my classes at all.  I took that to mean that they didn’t want me at the classes for whatever was happening.

“I’m out of classes for the week,” I told Skye.  Skye ate the rest of her food and nodded.

“I figured they would do something like that after last night’s conversation, because you now have an entire free week to do whatever you want, it would be best to see if you could go through the files to see if any new information came up.  Plus I will be on my holoscreen for the whole day you would be able to contact me at nearly any given time,” Skye said. I glanced over the message and frowned, I wasn’t even allowed at _lunch_.

“They aren’t even letting me go to lunch or really any of the common areas except for this room,” I told Skye.  Skye looked over at my screen and read that over.

“But they can’t ban you from leaving the building on break day unless you get detention.  Which you physically can’t because you won’t even be in any of your classes for the entire week,” Skye said.  I found that comforting; if only slightly. I sighed coming to the realization that I would be able to do nothing about that.  Instead I opted to answer to my sisters message about how school was. I typed out a letter that was much more cheerful than how I currently felt, and wasn’t giving any information on what was actually happening, just enough to make sure that she wouldn’t ask any questions.

Skye soon got up and clicked her holoscreen off and started towards the door.  “I’ve got to get to class now, I’ll keep you updated as much as I can,” she said as she left the room.  Despite the letter saying that I was allowed to leave during break I knew that I wasn’t supposed to step out of my room for any reasons despite that.  They might even take away the possibility of me leaving this building at all.

I sat down on the couch and started to comb through the files again searching to see if I was missing anything I hadn’t seen before.  There was nothing. Nothing that could suggest anything that was manifesting. I sat they're for about an hour searching in vain through the files for anything to give a small bit more.  Instead, Skye sent us a new file about something they where working on in her class. It was about genetically engineering people to be better suited to living in the environment.

I opened the file and the first thing I saw was the example of genetic engineering they chose to show.  It was the ultimate life form that would be able to survive in the depths of space with no protection. There where rumors that these creatures did exist but no one had seen any signs of anything that powerful.  The picture they showed was clearly created by an artist but still managed to seem life like. It was beautiful.

Nearly human, but with the blackest eyes you have ever seen.  It seemed to reflect the light of a thousand stars but remained as black as the dark velvet space between the stars themselves.  On its back where two huge feathered looking wings. The wings where the same velvety black but with what looked like a nebula splashed onto them.  The whole creature seemed to radiate power that I doubted even the strongest starship could even come close to equalling.

I continued to read over the information in the file that Skye had sent us but soon I felt the actions of the night before catching up to me.  Because I had no classes I decided that I had the right to go back into my room and take a nap until Skye got back, it wasn’t like I would be missing out on anything while I slept.

My dream started out normally enough, I was walking down the street back at my house with my family.  The sky was more clear than I had ever seen it but beautiful nonetheless. It was nearly perfect, no one was fighting, the weather was agreeable, and the sky was clear.  I should have known, dream or not, that nothing would ever be that perfect without something happening.

As we walked I started to feel a strange kind of tingly feeling along my back.  The tingly feeling grew into it felt like someone was sticking knives into my skin.  I gasped and fell over before I hear an ominous ripping noise and the pain stops. I took a shuddering breath and looked up to see the horror on my families faces.  They backed away from me and then my dream shifted.

I was floating in pitch black darkness.  It was more peaceful than anywhere else I had ever been.  I tried to look around me but no one else was there. Soon I heard something else, I looked around and saw a bright light.  I blinked and when I opened my eyes I found myself staring up at Skye.

“Oh, thank goodness you’re awake!  I came back here after my classes were over and I found you laying on your bed, you seemed to be upset about something,” Skye said as fast as she could.  I sat up and stretched.

“Well I’m fine now, except I think I layed on my back weird, it kind of hurts,” already the dreams from my nap were leaving me.  I could barely remember what it was about. Skye nodded and then walked out of my room.

“I got some more files for us to look out.  Plus food’s here,” she said on the way out. I got out of my bed and stretched again before following her out to the table.  I grabbed one of the plates already out and sat down before opening my holoscreen to look at the new files. It wasn’t as much as I was hoping and most of them were talking about things like keeping equipment up to standards and what not.

After five minutes of searching, I found something interesting.  It was talking about how the subject was becoming more unstable and that it was starting to run through sedatives faster than they originally thought.  Because of that, it was becoming more violent towards its caregivers. “Hey Skye, I think I might have found the reason they stopped with this experiment,” I said.

Skye walked over to me and quickly read the file.  “I found other little things hinting at something like that.  From what I could piece together whatever this is it managed to destroy half of one of the planets they were holding it on,” she said.  I stared at the file. Something was powerful enough to destroy half of a _planet_.  It would take at least half, if not all, of a fleet to destroy half a planet.  And that’s not counting the planet's inhabitants that would surely be defending their home.

“Wow,” I said.  Skye nodded as she ate her food.   I checked my calendar and found that there were only two more days till break day, then I would be able to leave and hopefully never come back.  Something was going on I didn’t want to be in the middle of it without more information. I finished my food and sat back in my chair. “You know, it’s really boring having to wait until break day to be able to leave this building,” I said.

Skye nodded, “It does seem like it would be boring.  I know that you would probably rather be doing your guard stuff, but I hope you still like the files I’m sending to you,” she said.

“That one file, about the genetic engineering, that one was the one that caught my eye the most,” I said.  Skye nodded and pulled up the entire worksheet. I guessed she’d been working on it for a while now. There were different formulas written over the whole thing and little notes everywhere as well as diagrams.

“Our assignment was to find out if genetic engineering soldiers to fight better in different environments is a good idea.  To do that I’ve been running tests to see the possible outcomes of this. We were also told to find the best soldier to exist in a certain area.  We could choose one of the planets that are currently in war or space as a whole. I chose to do space as a whole because I figured that one would be more of a challenge and to be honest you can do a lot more.  You just need to figure out how to make something survive without oxygen,” Skye babbled. I listened to her as she explained the different living materials that could exist without oxygen and that other people doing the space were choosing to mix it with a plants ability to live without oxygen.

“The only problem with mixing it with a plant is that the soldier would need light.  I decided that the best way was to find another material that could survive without light and oxygen.  I found one and it might work except this is a very deadly substance and I don’t think that my teacher would want us to use this if we were to pursue genetic engineering,” Skye went on.  So there was something that could live without light or oxygen. Maybe that’s what they were trying to do when half of that planet was destroyed.

“How dangerous is this substance that you're using?  I’ve rarely ever heard of something like that otherwise we could be using it to fight and things would be going much smoother,” I commented.

“Well as far as the tests I’ve been able to run it’s very rare and so dangerous that if not used correctly they could accidentally destroy entire planets and maybe even star systems,” Skye said.  That would have to be a lot of power. Where would you even find that material? I know that it must be unstable but if we could find a way to stabilize it wars would be won much faster and fewer lives would be lost.

“So how are you planning to use this to for you genetic engineering if it’s so dangerous?” I asked Skye. Skye thought for a bit and then pulled up another page this one about the chemical makeup of this material.

“Well, I’m not so much using it in my project as I am trying to make sense of one of the files I found that talked about using this and bonding it with something,” Skye answered.  I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my back and doubled over gasping before she or I could say anything more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, I have now gotten all caught up so updates will most likely be at least once or twice a week maybe more depending on how much time I have.


	7. Septem

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Excitement should finally be arriving!

 

Skye rushed over to me to hold me as I shook.  Something was stabbing my back and it  _ hurt _ .  “Kirra!” Skye exclaimed as she held me.  Slowly the pain left me and I was left shivering in Skye’s arms.  “Kirra are you okay? Talk to me,” Skye was saying.

“Ow,” I said and blinked up at Skye, at some point my vision had gone all blurry but now I could see her with more clarity than I ever had before.  I figured that was just because everything was blurry so seeing anything clearly would be like seeing it as clear as it could possibly be.

“Oh my goodness you’re alright, I invited Jax over and what is up with your eyes?” Skye said rapid fire as she looked down at my face.

“My eyes?” I asked in confusion.  What in the world was she meaning as what was up with my eyes?  Why would they be any different?

Skye nodded and then took a picture and showed me.  Normally my eyes were just plain brown. A little more vibrant in color but still just brown.  In the picture, however, my eyes were black with little pinpricks in them that looked like stars.  “What in the, you’re joking with me, aren’t you,” I said. There’s no way my eyes could go from brown to, to  _ space  _ eyes!  No one even has eyes that look like that.

“I’m not lying!  I’ll even go grab a mirror!” Skye said.  Her voice was raising a bit and I guessed that I had offended her by saying that she was lying to me.  I know that she wouldn’t lie to me on purpose but that just wasn’t  _ right _ .  A couple of seconds after that our door opened and Jax walked in.  He noticed the position Skye and I were in and hurried over.

“What happened?” he demanded as he came closer.

“Kirra just fell over and was shaking and her eyes changed colors,” Skye recounted.  I sat up from where I was laying on top of her.

“I’m fine, okay,” I said.  Skye arched her eyebrows in disbelief.  Jax opened his mouth to say something more when my holoscreen beeped at me.  I held up my finger for him to be quiet as I opened it. It was a message telling me to see the administrator on break day.  Without saying anything I turned to show it to Jax and Skye.

“We need to get out of here before break day,” Skye said after she read the message.  I nodded in agreement. Something was going on and I didn’t think it would end well with me.  Not with, whatever was happening. I figured that Skye wasn’t lying because she was so upset when I didn’t believe her.

“How are we going to get out before break day?  We have classes tomorrow and then break day, and the only time we could leave is in the middle of the night,” Jax said.  Skye and I looked at him before it dawned on him that it was the middle of the night.

“We’re leaving now,” I told them finally standing up.  “We’re not going to be able to grab many supplies but that shouldn’t be a problem, do any of you know how to fly?” I asked them.  Skye shook her head and Jax shrugged.

“Kind of, we haven’t really gotten to that part of our training yet,” Jax said.  I sighed, perfect, we’re going to have to figure this out on the fly. I grabbed a back and filled it with money, some clothes, and a couple of packages of food.

“Well, time for a crash course in how to fly fighter jets,” I said.  Skye blinked in surprise at me.

“Fighter jets!  We’re going to steal a  _ fighter jet _ ,” Skye said.  I just nodded and tossed my bag at her before packing another.  Jax grabbed the last bag and helped me pack some more supplies. “What if we get caught!  Then they are probably going to execute us!” Skye exclaimed. I sighed and stood up after having finished pack this bag.

“We’re not going to get caught, we’re just going to take one of the deep space ones and find a safe place to wait,” I said.  Jax slung the bag that he grabbed over his shoulder. 

Skye still looked uncertain but she seemed to agree with us. “Alright, let’s go steal a ship and get off this planet as fast as we possibly can,” she said.  I walked over to the door and then looked up at the security cameras hidden in the corner of the room. If we went out the normal way at least ten different cameras would catch us.

“Hey guys, how do you feel about going through the window?” I asked.  Jax rolled his eyes and walked over to open the window. Skye stared at me like I was insane.

“Not only are we going to steal a ship but now we’re jumping out of windows?  Why, Kirra, why?” she said. I smiled at Skye and walked over to Jax and looked down towards the ground.  It was too high to jump so it looked like we would be repelling down the side of the building. I tied a rope to the edge of the window and looked down the building.

“See you guys at the bottom,” I said and then jumped off.  I fell for about ten feet before coming to the edge of the building and starting a controlled descent to the bottom of the building.  Transports were whizzing past me at high speeds. In about three minutes I had reached the bottom of the building. I looked up to see Jax and Skye descending above me.  A couple of minutes later and both of them were on the ground with me.

“Let’s never do that again,” Skye said.  I smiled and nudged her before glancing around.

“Well, we still need to steal a ship and get out of here,” I said.  Skye sighed and stared back up at the swinging rope leading up to our open window.  It wasn’t going to go undetected for long, just long enough for us to get off the planet.  I started walking through the city leading the way towards the shipyard. Jax and Skye followed close behind me.

It took us about an hour of walking in the dark until I could see the bright lights showing every tiny detail of the landing pad.  I quickly zeroed in on the perfect jet for us to use. It was big enough to have a couple of cots in it as well as sleek enough that it was going to be fast.  I stopped the group far enough away from the pad as not to raise suspicion but still within view.

“Alright, Skye I need you to hack into the database and get security systems to go onto loop.  Jax, you are in charge of lookout and I’m going to get a ship running,” I said. Skye and Jax nodded before starting on the jobs that I had assigned to them.  Within five minutes Skye shut off her holoscreen.

“They are going to be on loop for two hours, that should be enough time to get a plane running,” she said.  I ran from our spot over the ship that I had chosen out, Jax and Skye behind me. I reached it and noticed that they had left the door opened and ran in.  I tossed my bag to the floor and slipped into the cockpit. The keys were on the seat.

I rolled my eyes at the carelessness of the person who left them here and started up the jet.  Everything was in working order and it had enough fuel to last as for a month. I closed the door once I was sure Skye and Jax were in the back and started to lift off the ground.

Jax moved up to the cockpit and grabbed a communications device.  I could hear someone talking at the end of it. 

“Firefighter 12 calling in, heading towards base 26C on orders of the General,” Jax said smoothly.  I guessed that he received permission to leave after he nodded at me and put the communications device back on the dashboard.  I turned the ship towards the sky and shot forwards, heading away from the planet.

We left the atmosphere and was met by the sight of a thousand stars.  I could see other ships flying around the atmosphere doing checks of the satellites and making sure that no one was leaving without permission, like us.  I was aware of Skye behind me when I heard her gasp in wonder.

“There are so many different stars out here, where are we even going to go?” she said.  I looked down at the map. Most of the galaxy was in the middle of a huge war, the only safe places were occupied by the government and I wanted to be far away from that.  The only other place was right on the edge and no one exactly knew where it was.

“We’re going to have to go through a battlefield to get to the planet Hicah, it’s the only other safe place for us to go,” I said.  Jax looked down at the map with me and frowned at the different places of war.

“Great, a high chance of death also, this is just getting better and better,” Skye said sarcastically.  I shrugged, it was the price of freedom. If we did get shot down then it wouldn’t matter if we made it to Hicah or not.  I put us onto an autopilot course and then sat back and opened my holoscreen. I started disabling the trackers in the ship and on our holoscreens so that we wouldn’t be found.

After the trackers were disabled I leaned back in my chair and looked at the passing stars around us.  We sat there in silence for a couple of minutes.

“What are we going to do after we get away for good?” Jax asked quietly.  I thought about this, right now my main concern was to just get away. But if we survived what would I want to do.

“I think I would want to figure out what’s going on with this big secret government thing,” I finally said.  Jax nodded and Skye opened her holoscreen.

“I think I have more information about that, actually,” she said as she pulled open another file.  I moved to look at the file and she moved it out of reach. “This one is a little bit different from the rest of the files, just as a warning,” Skye said.  I rolled my eyes and dragged it over to me.

**Sender: [REDACTED]**

**Recipient: [REDACTED]**

Subject Placement

The  **[REDACTED]** family has agreed to house the  **[REDACTED]** .  The  **[REDACTED]** will remain there until metamorphosis until the final stage is completed.  It is predicted to be on the final stage in 17 years time from creation.  The  **[REDACTED]** will be moved to the  **[REDACTED]** family on  **[REDACTED]** .

 

**The rest of this file is unavailable.**

“So this is some sort of, sleeper agent?” Jax asked after he read the file.  Skye shrugged.

“That’s what it seems to be implying,” she said.  I frowned and tried to see if there was anything I could to find out what had been redacted.  Nothing was showing up.

“Do you guys have any ideas what was redacted in this?” I asked as Skye and Jax started talking about what the rest of the file might have said.

“Well it’s probably the name of a family, whatever this thing is, and a date of some sort,” Jax said looking over the file again.  Skye nodded in agreement and I rolled my eyes.

“Well I know that, but  _ what  _ are the things that were reacted,” I said.

“If we knew then it wouldn’t say redacted, would it,” Skye said.  I sighed and realized that they weren’t going to give me the answer I wanted.

“Whatever, I’m going to take a nap, I’ll see you guys in a couple of hours hopefully,” I said as I moved into the cabin.  Skye and Jax continued talking about where we were going and what the file could mean. I laid down on one of the cots and stared at the ceiling.  Now that I had free time I realized just how much my back was hurting. It made my thoughts drift to the strange dream I had at the beginning of the year.

I slowly started drifting into sleep, ignoring the growing pain the best I could, when the alarms started.


End file.
